"One would be hard-pressed not to root for the likable protagonist and hope that her story eventually ends with a happy ending." ~ RT Book Reviews

Author Debra Coleman Jeter will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other Exclusive excerpts (☀).

She hoped winning the lottery would solve her problems. Her problems have just begun....

1975 -- Volkswagen introduces the Golf, John Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are found guilty of the Watergate cover-up, the Weather Underground bombs the U.S. State Department, and Bill Gates founds Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As Communist forces take Saigon and the Vietnam War winds down, Tray Dunaway, an ordinary teenager from a poor Southern family longs to become part of the popular clique at school.

Tray’s mother, Evelyn, lies in bed most days with a headache. With her bipolar tendency toward extreme highs or desperate lows, Tray watches her mother veer ever closer towards depression. Tray’s grandmother Ginny, still grieving over the loss of her husband, would love to move out and find a place of her own. Maybe even a bit of romance to replace the loss she feels. But given the sorry state of the family’s finances that’s not possible.

Then the Dunaways’ luck changes. Or so it seems.

Tray’s father drives a down-and-out friend of the family, Pee Wee Johnson, to Hazard, Illinois, so Johnson can buy lottery tickets. As a gesture of thanks, Johnson gives a ticket to Tray’s father. And what do you know? The Dunaways’ are suddenly rich.

When Johnson demands his cut of the winnings, Tray’s dad refuses. As Evelyn’s illness spirals toward madness, Johnson threatens the family. Tray makes one poor decision after another until what initially seemed like a stroke of good fortune quickly becomes a dangerous game of life and death for Tray.

I glance to the right and then to the left in the narrow hallway they’re walking me down like I’ve done this every day of my life. I take in the framed pictures of officers receiving awards and plaques for shooting contests, alongside a couple of framed newspaper articles. I resist the temptation to straighten one that hangs crookedly, as out of place in the neat rows as I feel at this moment.
The door to the room is closed. While the tall officer opens it, my eyes focus on a plaque lined with brass plates honoring the names of fallen officers. There aren’t many, but my stomach lurches. Fallen, like Gram, in the line of duty.
When we get in the room—which boasts a big gray-metal table with four chairs in the center, a long mirror on one wall, nothing on the other three—I sit where they tell me and start talking right away, as if my rambling will hush the butterflies fluttering around in my lying gut. “The thing is … I saw her that day before I left for Lori’s.” My voice quavers and I wonder if they can hear the lie in the quake. “She was messing around with the gasoline can in the garage, and I asked what she was doing. She acted funny, like I’d caught her at something. She said she just wanted to make sure there was enough. ‘Enough for what?’ I said. ‘Enough in case … in case I run out,’ she said. ‘You know how your dad gets when I run out of gas.’” My feet tap in restless anticipation. Of what, I don’t know.
The squatty officer tells me to slow down. He is busy flipping his pad open, trying to take notes fast enough to catch up. A quick glance over to the tall one and I see he is writing something too.
I take a breath and will myself to keep it sounding honest. With effort, I still my dancing feet. “Sorry,” I mumble.
“Go ahead now,” says the blond officer. I notice his eyes for the first time. They’re kind, and when he speaks a deep dimple pops into one cheek.
“I thought that was strange,” I say, my words coming slower, “because I don’t remember her ever running out of gas. At least not in a long time. But she’d been acting so strange anyway, I didn’t think too much about it. I thought she just liked the way it smelled, the way she was standing there inhaling it with this faraway look on her face.” I’m starting to believe my own lie—I can actually see this happening—so maybe they will too.
The squatty officer frowns at me, his eyebrows forming a single dark line above his eyes. It didn’t work. He sees right through me, I think, and I flush with shame mingled with something else. Relief? Fear? Can I be arrested for what I’ve done, I wonder. He didn’t make me swear an oath, and I am a minor, so I’m thinking not.
Suddenly, to my embarrassment, I start to cry. My tears at least are genuine. So genuine.
Staring down, trying to think what to say, I focus on their hands. Squatty is—without my saying anything—writing new words on the long, yellow pad of paper before him. I try to read some of what’s on the page from where I’m sitting. I see my words written there. My exact words. My damning words.
I think he believes me after all.

The Ticket is Debra Coleman Jeter’s first novel. It was a finalist for a Selah Award in two categories: Young Adult Fiction and First Novel.

A Vanderbilt University professor, Debra Coleman Jeter has published fiction and nonfiction in popular magazines, including Working Woman, New Woman, Self, Home Life, Savvy, Christian Woman, and American Baby. Her story, “Recovery,” won first prize in a Christian Woman short story competition, and her nonfiction book “Pshaw, It’s Me Grandson”: Tales of a Young Actor was a finalist in the 2007 USA Book News Awards.

She is a co-writer of the screenplay for Jess + Moss, a feature film which premiered in 2011 at the Sundance Film Festival, screened at nearly forty film festivals around the world, and captured several international awards.

11 comments:

Thanks, everyone at BooksChatter, for hosting an excerpt from The Ticket on your website today. Also, my thanks to everyone who reads, comments, or poses questions. I'm in a different time zone this week, so I'm probably sleeping as you read this and there may be a delay before I can comment back. Please know I really appreciate every comment I get! Don't forget to view the book trailer. Debra Coleman Jeter